Service providers rake in N2.6b monthly — Former Customs boss

Immediate past Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Hamman Bello Ahmed has disclosed that the three Service Providers rake in about N2.6 billion monthly as proceeds from the two percent Fee on Board (FOB) charges paid by importers on their consignments..
Ahmed accused the service providers of inefficiency saying that despite the huge amount that they collect, they do not perform the services for which they were engaged by government about four years ago. The former Customs boss lamented that while the Nigeria Customs Service which does the main work collects a little over =N=1Billion monthly,  the Service Providers net N2.6 billion monthly
Shipping Position Weekly recalls that shortly before leaving office,  the former Customs chief had accuse the service providers of incompetence and  complained that the images produced by the Service Providers from their scanning operations were either blanks or are not interpretable.
He had further stressed that the above was responsible for the Customs decision to commence 100 percent examination of most of the goods shipped into the country through the seaports.
Buttressing the above at a recent function in Lagos, Managing Director of Grimaldi Agency, Mr. Ascanio Russo pointed out that scanning services are non-existent in Port and Terminal Multi-services Limited (PTML), the terminal built and operated by his company.
“It is amazing that for over three years that a company known as Global Scan installed a scanner at the Tincan Island Port, not a single scanning has been done”, Russo alleged.
But reacting to the allegations., Managing Director of Cotecna Destination Nigeria Ltd, Mr. Yahya Rabiu explained that he had no idea of  how much the other Service providers gets but stressed that all of them (Service Providers) are paid from the one percent FOB collected as Comprehensive Import Supervision Scheme (CISS) by the committee in charge.
Rabiu explained that the money so collected are deposited at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and that government is aware of how much is collected monthly as well as what is paid out to them.
On the accusation of blank or un-interpretable images from scanning operations by the service providers, the Cotecna boss said why he could not speak for the other operators, it is not true that images produced by Cotecna scanners are blank.